“
When Matt Kenseth won the championship [in 2003] ... I don't remember Jack [Roush] saying, 'Oh, it wasn't very good, and the other team should have been allowed a mulligan because the 17 did better than anybody else.' The rules are the rules, and you have to make them work for you.
” -Jeff Burton

FORT WORTH, Texas -- You're up, Talladega.

In what's becoming a weekly game of "how to change the Chase," it's now the big Alabama racetrack's turn to sit squarely on the hot seat. One week after car owner Jack Roush floated the idea of a mulligan -- allowing a championship-contending driver to throw out his worst finish -- driver Greg Biffle proposed giving everyone a reprieve, and removing the big, bad, often calamitous 2.66-mile superspeedway from the Chase field altogether. Of course, he may be a little biased, given that it was a crash-induced 24th-place finish there that set him back in his pursuit of Sprint Cup leader Jimmie Johnson.


“
When Matt Kenseth won the championship [in 2003] ... I don't remember Jack [Roush] saying, 'Oh, it wasn't very good, and the other team should have been allowed a mulligan because the 17 did better than anybody else.' The rules are the rules, and you have to make them work for you.
”
-- JEFF BURTON"I'd rather say take Talladega out of the Chase and not worry about trying to get rid of your worst race, because it's happened every year. The same thing has happened every year at Talladega," said Biffle, third in the standings and 185 behind Johnson entering Sunday's event at Texas Motor Speedway. "When you go in there and you penalize a team that's worked as hard as all of us have, and it was none of our doing, we're involved in a wreck because something happened -- a guy cut a tire or whatever -- put Bristol in there or something else versus throwing out one of your bad finishes. That's my opinion about what they should do with the Chase."

Johnson's relentless march toward a record-tying third consecutive title -- which, depending on what happens at Texas, could become official as soon as next week -- has fostered a perception that something needs to be changed to ensure the hand-wringing, down-to-Homestead drama that defined the Chase playoff system in its first few years. There are plenty of proposals, both in the garage area and in the grandstand, some of them more realistic than others. But there's also a fear of guarding against any knee-jerk reactions stemming from a dominant season from one driver who'd be well in front of the field regardless of which points system is being used.

"We all want to change the rules when the rules don't work for us," said Jeff Burton, 218 points out in fourth place. "When Matt Kenseth won the championship [in 2003], everybody said, 'Oh, it's a boring championship race,' and I don't remember Jack [Roush] saying, 'Oh, it wasn't very good, and the other team should have been allowed a mulligan because the 17 did better than anybody else.' The rules are the rules, and you have to make them work for you. I think there are always ways to look at our sport to make improvements, I just think we have to be careful every time we have a points championship that's not as compelling, that's not the greatest, we have to be cautions against making changes. Not every championship is going to be a five-point difference. It's just not going to be."

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Of course, that's where the bar was set when the Chase was implemented, one year after Kenseth won a single race but still rolled up enough points to clinch the championship in the next-to-last week of the season. That first Chase was a gut-churner, with three drivers finishing within 16 points. Despite a few tweaks -- expanding the field from 10 drivers to 12, and seeding based on bonus points awarded for regular-season race victories -- that final margin has gradually expanded, from 35 in 2005, to 56 in 2006, to 77 in 2007 to likely more than 100 this season. No Chase driver has ever enjoyed a lead as large as Johnson has now. In the NASCAR fan base, as in the looming presidential election, there's a drumbeat for change.

News flash: It's not going happen. NASCAR chairman Brian France said in January that the sport was ready for a break from all the changes -- playoff system, racetracks, schedule, series title sponsors -- that it's endured the last half-decade. That includes the Chase. While no one is ruling out the possibility of a minor tweak here or there, no major structural revisions are anticipated. "We're going to hold the line on change," a NASCAR spokesman echoed Friday at Texas. And that's just fine with Dale Earnhardt Jr.


Mockery of system
It was bound to happen eventually -- a driver runs away with the title in the Chase era. Duane Cross offers up an alternative that would tighten things back up.

Complete story, click here
NASCAR's response
Head2Head: Tweak the Chase?
Point system explained
How the Chase works
"You can't take anything away from what Jimmie's been able to do up to this point. In my opinion, the Chase does what it's supposed to do. There's no real true formula that anybody in this room could come up with that could make the perfect Chase every time. I just think you've got to give Jimmie and those guys credit for what they've been able to accomplish in this sport. They're the dominant team in this sport at this time. You can't handicap an individual for being great," Earnhardt said.

"I think it's fair to conversate and communicate and throw discussions out there about changing the qualifying format and all the different things. I really think it's not a good idea to go making a bunch of changes, especially with the Chase. How do we understand what to change and how to make it better if we can't watch it and look at it for seven years or eight years and really get a good idea for how it's working or not working? How can we really know what to change and make the right change? We shouldn't keep changing, changing, changing, until we stumble upon the right spot and the right options and the right ways to have things."

Of course, that doesn't mean a few ideas, some less half-baked than others, aren't going to be tossed around. Like Roush and his mulligan plan.

"I think Jack was very serious about that," said second-place Carl Edwards, who would benefit the most from it. "It seems to make sense, too. Right now we're so far behind, it seems like it would be very advantageous to us to have a mulligan in the Chase."

Such a scheme would eliminate Edwards' 33rd-place finish at Charlotte. And it would penalize Johnson, who has finished no lower than ninth.

What does the two-time defending champion think of all this? He sits back and shakes his head. He hears some folks propose that when qualifying is rained out, the starting field should be set by random draw, nullifying all the work teams do get to the top in points. What's next, he wonders, NASCAR champions determined like the winner on American Idol?

"It is interesting to hear the comments, and it makes me laugh that our sport can be susceptible to the whole reality TV buzz that's coming along. If you don't like it, let's have a fan vote, and let's change it. If nobody likes it, let's just have Sprint run an ad on TV and they can text who they want to qualify on the pole and who they want to win the race, and all these crazy things. I mean, it's really crazy. Racing is about earning points and earning wins. We made an adjustment to the points system a few years back to make it more competitive. What else are we going to change?" Johnson said.

"If I were sitting 183 out where Carl is, and I don't think Carl is saying these things, I'd be looking at what's going on with myself and the team. I wouldn't be saying, 'Oh, we need a mulligan, or this or that to make it even.' We all showed up for the 10 races. The points were there, and you go earn it. That's what you want to do."

As always, Johnson is the unflustered king of cool. But the questions -- and their underlying insinuations -- are clearly an irritant. And it's easy to see why. He was 10th in points after a rare engine failure at Charlotte in May. He was still fourth after the Bristol night race. Since then he's won four times, finished no lower than ninth, and even under the old system would still be leading Edwards by a healthy 98 points. To paraphrase the late John Housman, he's earned it. But his historic dominance the last three seasons has some yearning for change, and under the perception that an altered points system is the best way to achieve it.

Burton thinks they're wrong. "The call that the media was making was to reward the people that are winning races and doing the best. The argument is, the old points system didn't do that," he said. "Well, who can stand up and say that if the 48 team goes on to win the championship, the best team didn't win the championship? Who can stand up and make that argument? There's no one in here that can make that argument. I understand there are probably some people that wear the 88 hat [of Earnhardt Jr.] that might make that argument. But the reality of it is, if the 48 car wins this championship, it's because they did it better than anybody else."

So no major changes. No mulligans. And much to Biffle's chagrin, the executives at Talladega Superspeedway can rest easy. If anything, the Alabama track will play a more prominent role in the outcome next season, when it trades places with Atlanta and has a late October date.

"It is, without a doubt, the most volatile race in the Chase," Burton said. "But so what? Some of it is luck, no question about it. Some of Talladega has nothing to do with skill and a great deal to do with luck. There's no getting around that. But it is what it is. I understand how you could have that feeling, but it is the same for everybody."

In Johnson's eyes, that's just like the Chase.